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Nontraditional Minneapolis Campus Students
CSC's Minneapolis Nursing Program
Attracts a Wide Range of Students --
Including the Retiring Scientist Bob Kirk
Bob Kirk '98, sixty-seven years old, is one of the most nontraditional St. Catherine alum you will ever meet. When he was in his fifties, with a PhD in chemistry and a lucrative job as a 3M research scientist, he went back to school to prepare for a retirement career as a nurse, and he urges other people to do the same. "Nursing is the perfect retirement career," he says. "You work only when you want, and the volunteer opportunities are terrific!"
"I had my health and energy, and the stock market had been treating me well,' explains Kirk, who has three children and seven grandchildren. "I was looking for something that I could do to give back the good things that had been given to me."
Able to Work Full-Time As Chemist While Attending
As he began looking into nursing programs at nearby community colleges, he discovered that the classes and clinicals were all scheduled during the day, whereas he wanted tokeep working full-time while he went to school. Only at St. Catherine could he do both.
"Actually, when you're in a technical field, you have to be learning new things all the time, so going back to school wasn't really a challenge," says Kirk, "but it wasn't a piece of cake either."
For four years, Kirk went to school nights and weekends at CSC's Minneapolis campus, graduating with an AA degree in 1998. Following his retirement from 3M in 1999, he spent five years working part-time at the Bethesda Hospital in Saint Paul, now the largest rehabilitation hospital in the region.
A Valuable National Volunteer
Then disasters hit the nation and he was able to respond immediately. As a Red Cross volunteer, he traveled to New York and New Orleans to help care for the victims of the 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina disasters. This past year, he resigned from his job at Bethesda and is now collaborating with a Native American colleague to provide information to medicine men working with diabetes patients on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota.
Sees CSC as Friendly and Accommodating
Going back to school can be a bit humbling, he admits. "You have to be willing to accept advice from people who might be the age of your grandchildren," he says. "If that bothers you, you probably don't want to start over.'
But the rewards are worth it, Bob feels, especially since the Minneapolis Campus Health Program makes it welcoming. "It was as friendly and accommodating as any college I've ever attended," he says, and that includes Yale.
Thus, given the nursing shortage, Kirk would like to seem more retirees consider second careers in health care, and he would highly recommend St. Kate's to any prospective students. |
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